The pot plants inthe foyer are being over watered at the moment, and each time this happens we are having a small flood in the foyer under the stairs. Please resist giving the plants lots of water in one go. Thanks, Terri

I have rung Canon, they should be coming to fix it – the start button does not seem to be working.

I have printed out a copy of the PACS 401 reading list and put it up on the Held Out shelves.
The students have been told the books are being kept together behind the desk, but they are just in the normal call no. order on the Held Out shelves, and several are in the Aotearoa room. Refer any students to me if necessary.

Kia ora koutou, print outs of the Trouble shooting checklists for distance students (relevant to all students really and good for us in dealing with them) – are now in the folder of recent updates of lending info at the lending desk (just under the lending computer screen).

The general rule is that only one archival item (be it a box, folder or single bit of paper) is to be given to users at any one time. This should be the default position.

The reason for this rule is to make sure users don’t mix up archives and lose them (i.e. by returning the wrong item to the wrong place in a sequence of items; or worse a completely different accession which has occurred on a number of occasions) and for security purposes (i.e. the more items are issued at one time the harder it is for us to keep track of them, the more likely it is they could go missing) .

I will sometimes make an exception however and staff should feel able to make an exception too they think it is warranted. These are special circumstances such as:

• A user may have requested several large bound registers to look at. They are not going to be able to mix up the contents of these registers, or easily spirit them away, so there is no logical reason why they cannot look at several registers at once.

• Sometimes users need items side by side to compare and contrast. We have to be open to that.

In such circumstances it should be made clear to users that an exception is being made and the default position should be explained to them. That way they won’t necessarily expect the same provisions to be made during subsequent visits.

I know exceptions are a hassle to implement sometimes but we have to be reasonable about these things. If you are in doubt just stick to the default position and refer any queries to me or Jill.

This is a response to a reqest at a staff meeting last year. Staff expressed frustration at not being able to return held out archives to their proper locations on the held-out shelves with out running back and forth between the desk and the archives work room to consult the held out report.

Staff requested that held out locations be written on production slips. It seemed an elegant solution which I agreed to. However, on further thought it is a bit impractical. For one thing slips (despite our best intentions) seem to often get seperated from items and for another I often have to change held out locations as archives come and go which would mean a lot of scribbling out and re-writing. I foresee a terrible muddle ensuing, especially during busy times.

In leiu of this I thought that I will simply produce a second copy of the held out report which will be kept at AHO 3d. This is the first shelf labelled ‘copy requests’. Hopefully this means that staff will be able to check the held-out location in situ without having to refer to the report at the desk.

Let me know how it goes.

6000 request cards and 2000 with compliments slips have been ordered today.

Today we received 2000 new MB request cards. I have put some out in the library and the rest are in the stationery cupboard. We will try and monitor how long they last. They seem a bit thinner and more flexible than the last lot we got. Please still educate borrowers about requesting items online where appropriate.

Please please please when you are on desk make sure you check returned itesm in. Too often I have to go chase up 2hr loans that have been returned but are still issued to the borrower. As I don’t discover this until the next day the borrower ends up with a an overdue email generated overnight.
Grrrrrrrrr

We have been given the go-ahead to purchase another ladder for the Macmillan Brown Library end of the Library warehouse. This is your chance to let us know what you would prefer. I can’t promise a democratic vote but if there is a consensus around a particular ladder that will help in the decision making process.

The company we can purchase from is Bindon Ladders

I have narrowed it down to this one: “The Comet”
I am open to suggestions so let me know what you think in the comments section. I would like to get an order in by the end of the week.

By the way, I don’t know why its called “The Comet” – perhaps because it enables you to reach out to comets? Your guess is as good as mine.